UNICEF slams Israel’s Gaza aid plan as choice between ‘displacement and death’
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has rejected a controversial US-backed Israeli aid plan for Gaza, warning it could force families into an “impossible choice between displacement and death.
Under the plan, which was outlined by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, the aid mechanism will be administered by a newly formed private foundation set up by the US.
The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation would set up distribution sites that would be secured by private US military contractors and manned by aid workers.
The United Nations and other primary aid groups in Gaza have rejected the plan, saying they will not co-operate with the scheme because it appears to “weaponize” aid.
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva that it is “dangerous to ask civilians to go into militarized zones to collect rations…humanitarian aid should never be used as a bargaining chip.”
The use of humanitarian aid, he said, “as a bait to force displacement, especially from the north to the south, will create this impossible choice between displacement and death.”
According to Elder, if the US-backed plan were to be implemented, Gaza’s most vulnerable individuals— the elderly, children with disabilities, the sick, and the wounded who cannot travel to designated distribution zones— would face “horrendous challenges” retrieving aid.
The plan’s design, he said, “will increase the ongoing suffering of children and families in the Gaza Strip.”
Practically unfeasible
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs described the plan as “practically unfeasible, incompatible with humanitarian principles.”
The United Nations also criticized the plan for a critically low number of distribution sites, which could force displaced Palestinians to walk long distances carrying heavy packages of rations for large families.
Lift Gaza siege instead
The main UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, called on the Israeli regime to instead lift its nearly 10-week total siege on Gaza and allow aid to flow in freely.
UNRWA, the largest aid provider in the enclave, said it has “over 3,000 trucks of aid” stranded outside Gaza.
It said that “basic humanitarian supplies, including food, fuel, medical aid and vaccines for children, are rapidly running out; UNRWA flour and food parcels have run out and over one third of essential medical supplies are already out of stock.”
“This is having a devastating impact on the population, particularly on vulnerable groups including children, women, and the elderly.”
Ambassador Huckabee acknowledged that the plan will initially feed only about 60% of the population.
He said the aid mechanism will aim to distribute food in a way that “Hamas is not able to get their hands on it.”
Hamas, however, described the proposal as part of Tel Aviv’s “plans for displacement and subjugation through a policy of starvation.”
In a statement released Friday, the resistance group reiterated its call on the international community “to take urgent action to prevent the militarization of aid and its transformation into a tool for managing starvation and a blatant violation of humanitarian standards.”
The Gaza Strip has been under a complete aid blockade since Israel broke a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in mid-March.
Humanitarian organizations have warned repeatedly that food, water, medicines, and fuel have been running out across the populated territory.
